


the lower honor bathroom

by pumpkinpaperweight



Series: filling in canon [9]
Category: The School for Good and Evil - Soman Chainani
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, I took a few liberties, mostly anyway shsjs, there are implications of tagatha here lmao but not enough to warrant a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29029029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pumpkinpaperweight/pseuds/pumpkinpaperweight
Summary: agatha is not the first person to find dot in the boy's toilets. tedros is.but tedros is rather good at keeping secrets.--(set in book 1, just before "hope in the toilet")
Relationships: Dot & Tedros (The School for Good and Evil)
Series: filling in canon [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1651123
Comments: 13
Kudos: 56





	the lower honor bathroom

Tedros skipped History to go and have a bath. 

It wasn’t something a good Class Captain would do, but as recent events had established, Tedros was not a very good Class Captain. Plus, Beatrix and Agatha were vying each other for his spot; Agatha had taken first in Good Deeds, Beatrix first in Beautification, and Tedros first in Chivalry. If either one of them got first in History today, they’d knock him off the top of the board. 

He’d prefer it to be Agatha. But either way, it wasn’t going to be him, because he was skipping the lesson. Hopefully Chaddick would say he was ill, or had a meeting with another teacher, or something. Not that old Sader would buy it, but anything was better than Tedros having to sit through a double lesson about his own father. Not right now, with his shame still fresh and pride still smarting. Arthur would have realised Sophie was a witch. Arthur would have stopped the attacks and been able to successfully defend the School against her. Arthur--

Tedros stopped at the top of the first Honor stairs, eye drawn by something; a set of muddy footprints emerging from a side passageway, tramping across the blue glass and going up the next set of stairs. Not heels, not Everboy boots… flatter than that. More solid and practical.

His first thought was Agatha, tramping about in those odd boots of hers.

His second was  _ Never Attacks. _

Immediately, he straightened and put his hand to his training sword, looking this way and that for any signs of infiltration… but the halls were quiet. The only sign of life was the faint echoing of Pollux shouting, down in the dance hall where the other class were practicing. 

Tedros looked down at the tracks. Could be Never boots. Agatha’s were eerily similar to the ones that the Nevergirls wore, another one of those things that had made all of the Evers look upon her with suspicion. It couldn’t be  _ Sophie,  _ because Sophie wore ridiculous impractical shoes, but could easily be a minion or a delegate sent to do her dirty work.  _ Perhaps she doesn’t want to risk a broken nail,  _ he sneered to himself. 

He knew full well he should raise the alarm, go running to Professor Dovey, but-- but this could be his chance.

Tedros paused, eyes lighting up. Yes, his chance! He could catch the attackers, force them to tell him how they were getting in. He could  _ prove _ he was worthy of being ranked first, prove he was worthy of his father! He could scrub his embarrassments in the Trial away and redeem himself, start anew, force Sophie out of his school and out of his head once and for all…

Newly eager, Tedros followed after the footprints, tracking them up the second set of blue Honor stairs, past the empty Chivalry classrooms and past the stairs that led to Merlin’s Menagerie, all the way to--

The bathrooms?

Well, he’d been coming here anyway, to sulk in the bath, but…

Suddenly wary of a trap, Tedros hovered in the doorway, nervously scratching the heel of his boot into the tracks he’d been following. He’d been so busy thinking of his own redemption that it hadn’t occurred to him that these footprints might have been planted on purpose, to lure him in, to further attack and humiliate him... 

As quietly as he could, he drew his training sword. He was sure there was someone in here. He could hear scuffling from further in the room. But if he was fast enough, he should be able to subdue them--

His foot slipped slightly on top of the footprints he’d been following. Bewildered, Tedros looked down to find them smearing on the floor, wet once more, as if they’d melted like chocolate--

Chocolate.

Tedros took an incredulous step into the bathroom. 

_ “Dot?”  _

A muffled squeak came from the final stall, hastily stifled. 

Not mud at all. Chocolate, tracked all the way through Good by the weak link of the Coven.

Tedros sagged, feeling rather pathetic. Not an attacker for him to apprehend after all. Just Dot, crying in the Lower Honor bathroom--

But why was  _ Dot _ in Good? 

Better yet, why was Dot in the  _ Everboy’s  _ bathroom?

Tedros strode down the row of stalls, got his fingers under the flimsy blue door, and yanked the last stall open.

Dot, huddled in a ball on the ridiculous fancy toilet, burst immediately into hysterical tears.

“I’m not attacking Good!”

“I didn’t say you were attacki--” Tedros caught sight of his training sword in his hand and hastily resheathed it. Luckily, Dot was bawling too hard to notice;

“I-I didn’t think anyone came to these bathrooms! I’m not trying to be weird, honest-- I just-- needed some-- somewhere--”

“...you got kicked out of your room, didn’t you.” inferred Tedros. 

Dot cried harder.

“Good god, girl--” Tedros barged the door out of the way and came to crouch down in front of her. “How long have you  _ been  _ here? What happened?”

More tears, great fat drops, rolled down Dot’s face and splattered into her lap. She hiccupped;

“He-Hester and Anadil kicked me o-out because they said a Coven is three, and now Sophie’s a  _ proper  _ witch they don’t want me anymore, coz they think she’s a better witch than me, so they locked me out and won’t talk to meeee--” 

Tedros dug in his pocket to find his handkerchief, and gave it to Dot to blow her nose, which she did very noisily. She gulped a few times, then carried on slightly calmer; 

“I slept on the floor in Malice for the first two nights.” she sniffed. “But then Sophie got Mona and Arachne to kick me out, and then eventually  _ no one  _ would let me sleep on the floor anywhere, so after Surviving Fairy Tales I snuck up here because I hoped no one would be as mean if they found me, ‘cos Evers are supposed to be nice, right? Someone said that no one ever uses these bathrooms.” 

“Yeah, the towering statue of Triton looming over the stalls is a bit off-putting when you’re trying to piss.” said Tedros. 

Dot squinted at him through watery eyes. “How’d you find me, then?”

“You tracked chocolate all over the floor.” said Tedros. 

“...oh.” Dot wrung his handkerchief in her hands. Tedros hoped she wasn’t also planning on turning that to chocolate. “Whoops.”

“Have you  _ really _ been sleeping in this stall?”

“I sneak out to sleep in the bathtubs at night.” sniffled Dot. 

“That can’t be very comfortable.”

“It’s not.” said Dot. She squared her shoulders slightly. “But I’m a Never, so I can put up with things like that.”

Tedros did not voice his  _ a Never who’s currently hiding in the Ever bathrooms  _ comment, but Dot must have thought of it as well, because she drooped. 

“Please don’t tell anyone, Teddy. They’ll slaughter me. You understand, right?” she peered beseechingly at him.

Tedros did understand, actually. Out of all the Nevers, he’d probably spoken to Dot the most, and he’d gotten a good grasp of what it was like to be at the bottom of the pecking order in Evil. It involved a lot of dung being thrown and insults that you just had to take on the chin, as far as he could gather. And the idea that Sophie was now the one deciding what happened to those at the bottom...? Even a bathroom in Good was better than Dot being back in Evil.

“Course I won’t tell.” he said. “It’ll be like that dumb summit. Me and you, under the table playing dominoes whilst our fathers argue.”

They had met once before the School, at a summit between Nottingham and Camelot. Tedros had probably only been about seven, and Dot slightly older at eight or nine, and they’d peered at each other from behind their father’s backs with interest whilst all the adults postured. They’d gone to hide under one of the long white-clothed tables and played with some dominoes Tedros had begged off of Lancelot whilst Arthur and the Sheriff argued. Later, no one had been able to find them, and they’d nearly caused an international incident--

But he wasn’t going to think of his father. 

Still, Dot’s face lit up. 

“Oh, yes!  _ Thank  _ you Teddy--” she seemed to teeter on the edge of kissing his cheek, before thinking better of it and sitting back, beaming. Tedros, who had not been looked upon with such enthusiasm since the Trial, dug about and managed to summon a passable imitation of his usual rakish charm. 

“You can kiss me if you like, sweetheart.” said Tedros.

Dot cackled and planted a very sticky kiss on his cheekbone with a loud  _ smack. _

* * *

“I can get you spare bedding.” said Tedros as they walked back the way he’d come, scouring the chocolate off the floor with their fingerglows. “Sleeping in a bunch of horrible bathtubs isn’t exactly ideal, but it would be slightly better with a real pillow and things. What are you doing for food? Are you going back to Evil for meals?”

“No, I…” Dot sheepishly gestured to the footprints. Tedros stared at her. 

“You can’t  _ only  _ eat chocolate, you’ll make yourself horrendously ill.”

Dot pouted. “Says the man who pretty much exclusively eats red meat.”

“I don’t!”

“You  _ always  _ give the weird vegetables to Agatha, I see you do it.”

“Shut up.” Tedros barged her with his hip.

“You shut up.” Dot did it back, harder. Tedros stumbled, grinning. 

“Fine, I’ll sneak you up food from our meals.”

Dot looked stricken.

“You can’t give me your food!”

“I’ll make them give me two portions.”

“How?” 

“I can be very persuasive.” Tedros turned the full power of his smile on her. “I’ll pretend I’m trying to build muscle mass. The nymphs don’t pay proper attention anyway, and they always have too much food left at the end.”

“...okay...” conceded Dot reluctantly. “But what if someone finds me?”

Tedros considered this. 

“...I’ll spread a rumour that Pollux uses the bidets for his manky substitute bodies and now there’s some kind of fungus growing in the drains.”

Dot squinted at him. 

“Some of your methods are very…  _ Never.” _

“Learned from the best.” Tedros told her. Dot smiled, but she still looked nervous. 

“They’ll get suspicious if I’m not at lunch, though. Hester and Anadil, I mean.”

Would they? Tedros wasn’t sure. Frankly, he wouldn’t have been surprised if Hester and Anadil simply ignored or didn’t notice Dot’s absence. They’d never seemed to be the most attentive of friends, if friends was the right word for it. Coven-mates was maybe a better fit. 

“So I need to go. But if I do, they’ll corner me and find out.” mumbled Dot. “And then everyone will laugh even more, and kick me out… I might even fail again.”

Tedros turned to her, surprised. He often forgot that Dot was actually the oldest student in the year; she'd failed on her first attempt at first year, but for whatever reason she had been given a second chance. The rumour mill said the Sheriff had done a favour for the School Master.

“Don’t think I’ll get a second chance, this time.” said Dot, softly.

Tedros looked at her, erasing the last of her footprints with her head hung low. His handkerchief was still balled up in her hand. Her fingerglow was bright blue. It matched well with the floor they were stood on.

“Sit with me.” he said. 

Dot looked up at him. 

“What?”

“They won’t approach you if you’re with me.” Tedros said. “Sophie won’t let them. It’s too fraught.”

“But-- but you always sit with the other Everboys. Or Beatrix. They won’t want--”

“Sometimes I sit with Agatha.” said Tedros, knowing  _ sometimes  _ is more like  _ three times, once because she felt sorry for me after the visiting weekend and the other two because I was fed up with Beatrix, and she looked at me super weirdly but didn’t actually tell me to go away because I gave her my mushroom paté.  _ “I can sit with who I want. We’ll even go down now, so that no one will see where we came from. I’m still king of this stupid place. What can they do?”

...was that still true? He’d deliberately put a lot of conviction into it, but Tedros wasn’t sure if it was more for Dot’s benefit, or for his own. He saw the doubt and disdain in the eyes of the other Evers. It was masked well, but not quite well enough.

“...are you sure?” peeped Dot.

Tedros smiled at her. 

“Of course.”  _ No.  _ He held his arm out to her. “Come on, fair lady. Let's do lunch.”

Dot blushed.

* * *

“I’ve never had lunch with a handsome boy before,” said Dot brightly, under the oak tree in the middle of the grass as the other students emerged into the Clearing. “Well, I had lunch with  _ Hort  _ once, but that doesn’t really count, does it?”

“Definitely not.” said Tedros firmly, ignoring the frowns and outright stares they were drawing. Beatrix came sauntering over, chattering and holding her lunch--

She caught sight of them and dropped her entire bread roll into her soup.

Tedros blinked at her. 

“What?”

“Why are you sitting with  _ her?”  _ hissed Beatrix. 

“We’re catching up about our fathers.” said Tedros blandly. 

“Your father’s dead,” said Dot. 

“Yours isn’t.”

“Touché.”

Beatrix glared at him.

“You’re losing it, Teddy. Is there a hereditary madness in your family? First Sophie, then hanging around with Agatha, now  _ this?” _

_ “This _ has ears.” pipped Dot. “And a mouth with which to snitch to the Jaunt Jolie Journal about your impolite attitude.”

Tedros snorted. Beatrix turned away in a huff and stalked off to sit with a group of lesser Everboys. How low she had sunk, Tedros thought wryly. Clearly there was a point at which no one was willing to tolerate a Prince anymore, no matter how rich--

He turned his head and met a pair of green eyes across the Clearing.

He froze.

Sophie lurked under a withered tree, looking between him and Dot with raised eyebrows. She looked rather amused. Behind her, Hester and Anadil were silent and po-faced. He could guess her stance on the matter; rather similar to the one he’d just taken on Beatrix. Her true colours were revealed now, weren’t they? He should have seen them sooner. 

_ “Oh, she’s always lying. Just to get attention. Since she’s… you know…” _

_ “Since she’s…” _

_ “Fat.” _

He’d slapped her down then, true, but he should have remembered it more clearly. Dot had eaten double quantities of those horrible worms just so Sophie wouldn’t fail, and how did she repay her? By calling her a liar and saying she made things up to get attention because she was fat. 

He’d been so blinded by Sophie. How he hated her. 

Tedros kept her gaze, refusing to be the one to break first--

Sophie’s gaze shifted, and her face hardened. She turned away abruptly, expression suddenly becoming ugly. Tedros frowned, turning to find what she’d just seen--

“Move up.” said Agatha, standing over him. Her face was pleasant enough, but Tedros could see the smattering of colour on her neck and collarbones that suggested she was agitated.

“Will your  _ best friend  _ not take issue with that?” said Beatrix loudly, not moving from her spot.

Agatha’s expression faltered, and for a minute she was overtaken by the appearance she’d sported these past few months. Her shoulders hunched, her face soured--

Then she took a deep breath and seemed to cast it off again.

“We’re not speaking.” she said flatly.

Tedros and Dot looked at one another in surprise as she sat down and opened her basket. A post-Trial development they hadn’t been expecting. Agatha wasn’t speaking to Sophie… because of  _ him?  _

“We had a fight.” said Agatha, noticing their expressions. “It’s not completely to do with… all that stuff.”

She gestured vaguely between Sophie and Tedros.

_Oh._ Tedros deflated and went back to his soup. He needed to prick his ego, sometimes. 

But Dot looked happy, chatting to Agatha and debating the merits of changing the strawberry mousse to chocolate and what that would do to it and whether or not it would be mousse-like chocolate or actual chocolate mousse…

So there was that, at least. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not 100% sure the timeline lines up properly here, bc I didn't reread book 1 to write this, just wrote this on a whim, but go w it shjdhs. I also can't remember if the thing about Dot having failed originally is actually "canon" bc I believe it came from a deleted SGE chapter in the back of the AWWP paperback, and I never read it so it was hearsay only. Pretty sure it's legit tho. this was just a short little thing I wrote in a few hours and wanted to throw out there but I hope you enjoyed!


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